f lie TJlusQum of fjlodern Art A^ York, N.Y. 10019 Tel. 245-3200 Cable: Modernart L,;e',t 53 street, New October^ I968

ARTHUR DREXLER, DIRECTOR DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN

Arthur Drexler, Director of the Department of Architecture and Design at The

Museum of Modern Art^ joined the staff of the Museum as Curator of Architecture and

Design in 1951 ^^ ^^s been Director of the department since 19^6,

Before joining the Museum, Mr. Drexler was associated with the

design studios and was architectural editor of Interiors magazine. He was bom in

New York City in I925 and attended the High School of Music and Art and Cooper Union.

Since 1951^ Mr, Drexler has organized numerous exhibitions for the Museum, among

them: Eight Automobiles (I95I), Ten Automobiles (1953), Japanese House (I95l|- and 1955)^

Textiles U.S.A. (I956), Buildings for Business and Government (I957), Architecture

Worth Saving (I958), Gaudi (I958), 20th Century Design from the Museum Collection

(1958-59), Three Structures by Buckninster Fuller (1959), Visionary Architecture

(i960), The Drawings of (I962), Design for Sport (with Mildred

Constantine and Greta Daniel, I962), Le Corbusiert Buildings in Europe and India

(1963), Twentieth Century Engineering (196^4-), Modern Architecture U.S.A. (I965),

Drawings by (I966), The Architecture of Louis I. Kahn (I966),

Toward a Rational Automobile (I966) and The New City; Architecture and Urban Renewal

(I96T).

As Director of the Department of Architecture and Design, Mr. Drexler is responsible

for the works which are selected for the collection. He is also the director of the

permanent exhibition in the Philip L. Goodwin Galleries for Architecture and Design

on the second floor of the Museum*s East Wing, where about 320 works drawn from the

Museum's Collection of more than l<-,5000 objects are installed. The Museum is the only

place in the world where an international selection of furniture; machine-tooled and

hand-crafted useful objects} architectural models, plans and drawings; textiles;

posters and other examples of graphic design, selected on the basis of quality and

(more) -2- 1^^/^

f hi ^torlcal significance^ Is permanently on view. The collection surveys the major itjles from Art Nouveau, de Stljl, the Bauhaus, to the present day.

Mr. Drexler has written many catalogs for the Museum exhibitions which he has directed. His books published by the Museum Include: Built in U.S.A.; Postwar

Architecture (with Henry-Russell Hitchcock, 1952), The Architecture of Japan (1955), iBtroductlon to 20th Century Design (with Greta Daniel, 1959), and T^;entleth Century

Engineering (I961f). He has also written Mies van der Rohe, published by George

Brazlller in I96O, The Drawings of Frank Lloyd Wright published by Horizon Press in

1962 and the Introduction to the I958 Rinascente book, 11 Museo d'Arte Modema dl New York. as well as articles in such periodicals as Harpers magazine. Architectural Record,

Progressive Architecture, Arts and Architecture and Interiors.

In addition to his duties at the Museum, Mr. Drexler has lectured at New York

University, , , and the Massachusetts

Institute of Technology. In \.^(h, he participated in the Governor*s Conference on

Good Design in Sacramento, California, and on several occasions has been a speaker at the International Design Conference in Aspen, Colorado. Mr, Drexler is Chairman of

the Board of Trustees of the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies, established

in 1967 by The Museum of Modem Art in collaboration with Cornell University.

Photographs and additional information available from Elizabeth Shaw, Director, Department of Public Information, The , 11 West 53 Street,